The African Union (AU) has expressed concerns over reports of racial abuse of African students trying to flee Ukraine.
On Tuesday, the AU released a statement saying that it is “disturbed by reports that African citizens on the Ukrainian side of the border are being refused the right to cross the border to safety.” AU Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat stressed that “all people have the right to cross international borders during conflict […] notwithstanding their nationality or racial identity.”
The statement was made after several reports, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, detailing numerous instances of abuses against non-European people, especially Africans, trying to flee Ukraine. Several students from different African countries have complained that Ukrainian security forces have prevented them from boarding trains out of Kyiv to the Polish and Romanian borders. They noted that students of European descent were given passage.
One of the students told NBC News that he was kicked off from a train by officials who warned him that trains were meant for Ukrainians only. “The train was not filled before they left, but they never picked us,” he said.
Ukraine refusing African students to escape to Poland from the war! Has Poland or EU instructed Ukraine to do so? Does color decide humanitarianism? pic.twitter.com/wfhNunTF5d
— Ashok Swain (@ashoswai) February 27, 2022
Several videos on social media showed Africans being denied evacuation services and abused in Ukraine. During one instance, Ukrainian guards threatened to shoot African students if they did not leave.
Similarly, The New York Times (NYT) reported widespread harassment of Africans by European officials. A 24-year-old doctor from Nigeria told the NYT that she and her friends had been prevented from crossing the border by Ukrainian guards who allowed Ukrainians and other Europeans to enter. “They were beating people [Africans] up with sticks,” she said, adding, “They would slap them, beat them and push them to the end of the queue. It was awful.”
“Reports that Africans are singled out for unacceptable dissimilar treatment would be shockingly racist and in breach international law,” the AU statement read. In this regard, the AU urged all countries to “respect international law and show the same empathy and support to all people fleeing war.”
The Nigerian presidency tweeted that it understood the “pain and fear that is confronting all people” trying to flee Ukraine but underscored the need to ensure that “everyone is treated with dignity and without favour.”
Similar incidents of racial abuse have also been reported against other non-European students, particularly from the Middle East and India. Many Indian students described the abuse they had to face while desperately trying to flee Ukraine. Some even said that they were kicked, beaten, and thrown out of trains. Many others said they had not received any help and were stranded in cities like Kyiv and Kharkiv, which have seen intense shelling and air raids by Russia since Tuesday.
As per the United Nations, more than 600,000 civilians have already fled Ukraine and according to estimates by the European Union, over four million people are expected to leave the country in the coming weeks, especially since Russian forces have intensified their attacks on Ukrainian cities.